


The Secrets We Keep

by Tseecka



Series: MorMor Continuity [4]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Headcanon, M/M, Secrets, always angst, h/c
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-25
Updated: 2012-07-25
Packaged: 2017-11-10 16:49:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,110
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/468517
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tseecka/pseuds/Tseecka
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If anyone ever asked him directly, he’d tell him—before shooting them in the face, or having Sebastian do it while he stands a distance away so as not to get blood on his suit—that he’s in the business of secrets.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Secrets We Keep

Jim gets asked, more often than he finds tolerable, what exactly it is that he does. It’s all well and good to be a criminal mastermind, after all—but what, exactly, does that entail? What’s your job description? What duties do you perform? If we had to hire another person to do your job, what would we tell them they’d be doing?

They don’t actually ask him those questions; but the questions do get asked, by people who’ve no business poking into his business, underlings and nosy reporters and sensationalist tabloid writers who are all too eager to uncover the next big conspiracy. The questions get asked often enough that he’s actually spent some time coming up with his answer, and he thinks it’s suitable. 

If anyone ever asked him directly, he’d tell him—before shooting them in the face, or having Sebastian do it while he stands a distance away so as not to get blood on his suit—that he’s in the business of secrets. Buying, selling, creating, stealing, hiding—all of it to do with secrets. He’s gotten very good at it over the years, knowing just how to gently tease them from their hiding places and quickly turn around, sell it again or make it disappear, so quickly and deftly that you’d never even know he had it in the first place. No prints, no tracks, no clues. Everything he does, the heists and scams and especially, especially the killings, is at its root to do with secrets.

So with so many years of experience, it’s no wonder that he’s gotten especially good at it. He’s spent years of his life studying secrets and the science behind them, understanding them, owning them. And along with the art of secrecy, he has, by necessity, picked up a few other areas of expertise. Things that go along with secrets, like hiding a trail at a crime scene, understanding financial reports. Lying. Oh, he’s gotten very good at lying. You have to lie, to have a secret, after all; otherwise, people ask you “Are you hiding something from me?” and you’d be forced to tell them, “Yes, actually, I am.” He’s had to learn how to tell when someone is lying; and by doing so, he’s perfected the art of being a liar. 

There aren’t a lot of secrets he keeps these days. The business is too profitable, and as much glee as he derives from owning them, there is always so much more worth to the knowledge he collects by selling it, onwards to an interested party, or back to the person he took it from in the first place. He even plays fast and loose with his own secrets, because never let it be said Jim Moriarty let worry for his own wellbeing stand in the way of a good game. But there are some that he does keep, hidden way down, under lock and key and a million techniques he’s learned through the years to hide a secret and keep it that way. 

Some he’s pretty sure he’s hidden so well even he doesn’t know what they are anymore. Things from his past, details about his family that he can’t afford to remember and cannot by any means allow others to get their hands on. Some of the tricks of his trade, the things that keep him far and above all the cretins who try to cash in on his success, the copycats and wannabes who will never, ever have a chance of dethroning him because, quite simply, they don’t know his secret (and he, conversely, knows all of theirs). A few little things, of absolutely no import except to his pride, things which would diminish his credibility if not his danger; favourite movies, music, that sort of thing. He’d kill anyone who laughed, but he’d rather not be laughed at in the first place. 

These are the secrets he won’t allow to see the light of day; the secrets that he would kill himself before he spoke, the things buried so deep down it’s almost as though they don’t exist; he knows there are definitely some he’s entirely forgotten, and that’s as it should be. 

But some of them are hard to keep, damn hard; they try his nerve at every turn, bubbling up, threatening to spill over so insistently that he’s contemplated therapy, lobotomy, death itself just to keep them from coming out. Triggered by every damn thing, every damn day, and if he didn’t already know he was a bit of a masochist this would be proof enough. He eliminates his triggers, tries to—his secrets are precious enough that it’s worth the destruction of any number of valuable assets in order to keep them safe—but sometimes…the pain of it is just so delicious that he  _can’t_.

It’s a failing, and it’s dangerous, and he can’t quite bring himself to care. All it would take is one slip to ruin him, positively ruin him and bring down his entire empire; all it would take to keep everything safe is the simple elimination of one tiny blip on the radar.

But then there’s a flash of green eyes, a smirk, teeth on his ears and a pulse under his lips and calloused fingers on his shoulders, his biceps and

slipping rough but smooth inside of him, taking him apart and

the line of an arm, muscle lean and rippling with the crack of a rifle and a lean chest heaving in exertion, spackled with blood and

the sense of a presence at his back, beside him, strong and dangerous and protective and wild and

(he doesn’t allow himself to think the word, but it floats accusingly in 12 point font behind his eyes anyways when he squeezes them shut to banish the images:  _beautiful_ )

and the pain of that secret is so utterly exquisite, so delicious, that he can’t bring himself to exterminate the cause. It weighs heavy on his mind, his soul, in the heart he has to maintain he doesn’t have, but it’s heady like a good wine and he doesn’t think he can part with it. Isn’t sure he can part with  _him_ , and that’s the most dangerous part of all. 

He wonders if, one day, he’ll slip up, speak the secret aloud. He knows it would mean his entire empire falling down in shambles around his ears. 

On the really dark nights, when the images in his mind are the most vivid and the sweat is cooling on his skin and his breathing sounds in gentle counterpoint to another’s, he wonders if it just might be worth it. 


End file.
